When the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medals were introduced last year, they were meant to recognize the contributions and outstanding achievements of Canadians. However, the municipal government of London, Ont., named the “worst council ever” by one local paper, saw it as a chance to honour its own work. After the city’s scandal-plagued Mayor Joe Fontana nominated all 14 council members for the award, the councillors voted in an in-camera session late last year to give the medals to themselves, a move that only came to light last week.

The medals were created by the Governor General to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the accession to the throne of Queen Elizabeth II as Queen of Canada. The city nominated around 300 people, including the councillors, but officials discovered there were only 129 medals available. Members of the community, including Fanny Goose, a 90-year-old Holocaust survivor who ran a downtown clothing store for 50 years and who was told she had been nominated, were informed they were not getting an award.

“I was dismayed because they go out and tell a 90-year-old woman she is nominated for a medal—and my mother takes it very seriously because she is a Holocaust survivor and democracy [is important to her],” says her son, Steven Garrison. “We had no idea they changed their mind until we called their office and the office says, ‘Oh, by the way, she’s not getting a medal now. We didn’t get enough.’ ” He was shocked to find out councillors had been nominated. “At first the councillors tried to blame it all on the mayor, but they voted on the issue. Anyone else would have said, ‘Hello, what are we doing here?’ ”

Even before the medal fiasco, Mayor Fontana was facing calls to step down. Last November police charged the former Liberal MP with fraud under $5,000 after the London Free Press reported federal taxpayers paid to cover his son’s wedding reception in 2005. He has denied any wrongdoing.

In a statement about the councillors’ medals, the mayor said he “felt it was more than appropriate” to recognize “their long-time involvement and personal investment in improving quality of life in London.”

An anonymous donor has since given his medal to Goose. Four councillors have declined the medals and offered them to someone else more deserving, saying the mayor’s list had majority approval but it was not unanimous. Among them is Coun. Joni Baechler who said nominating council members was “self-serving.”

]]>While the premiers meet in Halifax, Stephen Harper meets with Justin Bieber to present the pop star with a Diamond Jubilee Medal. (Presumably it wasn’t a choice between one or the other, but it’s impolite to turn down easy jokes.)

Rest assured, the Internet is perplexed by Mr. Bieber’s choice of attire. The race should be on to see who can photoshop Darrell Dexter’s head on Mr. Bieber’s body first.

OTTAWA — An anti-abortion activist who is currently in jail in Toronto has received one of the Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee medals intended to mark “significant achievements” by Canadians. Mary Wagner, 38, who has been repeatedly charged with mischief and violating court orders at abortion clinics, was nominated for the medal by Saskatchewan Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott.

Vellacott told LifeSiteNews that he had arranged to have Wagner given a medal for “using civil disobedience to further a just cause.” I’m afraid this reflects the intellectual calibre of the pro-life movement very accurately. “Civil disobedience” implies a passive or negative resistance to the state, a non-violent refusal to comply with a law: the seminal example was Thoreau’s refusal to pay taxes to a warmongering government. When a pro-life protester invades a “bubble zone” around a private abortion clinic to express an anti-abortion message, that might, by a generous extension of principles, be considered an act of civil disobedience. I’m afraid Mary Wagner went just a little further than the phrase will allow.

…the appellant appeared at the Bloor West Village Women’s Clinic mid-morning on November 8, 2011, and somehow gained entry to the electronically controlled, secure waiting room of the Clinic. It is common ground that she was not welcome. Abortions are performed at the Clinic and the appellant is opposed to abortion. Once inside, she began talking to the patients who were in the waiting room. While no one testified as to what the appellant said to these patients, it is safe to assume that, as some of them ended up distressed and crying, the appellant was speaking to them about abortion.

Patricia Hasen, part-owner and employee of the Women’s Clinic, summoned the police and asked the appellant to leave the premises. She did not leave. The trial judge concluded, based on this evidence, that the appellant became, at least at that point, a trespasser on the premises. When Ms. Hasen tried to ameliorate the situation by moving her patients into a secure interior area of the Clinic, the appellant tried to follow. This led to something of a struggle at the doorway, with Ms. Hasen trying to close the door leading to this interior area, and the appellant trying to keep the door open so she too could enter this area. During this struggle, Ms. Hasen demanded several times that the appellant release the door. Eventually, Ms. Hasen was able to shut and secure the door.

“Civil disobedience” that involves invading a private premises and tussling with the people therein? Hey, why not steal the flat-screen TV and the good drugs while you’re in there? Thoreau would puke. Whenever I have a go at the pro-life movement I always get e-mails and comments from pro-lifers who insist that most of them are sane, sensible, and peaceful. I’m sure it’s true. In fact, I know it is. It’s also sort of irrelevant: if the pro-life movement cannot distinguish crazy people from sane ones, to the point of suffering from an irresistible propensity for making hero-martyrs out of the former, then it can expect to be treated as a social blight.

]]>https://www.macleans.ca/uncategorized/turn-the-other-cheek-unless-youre-in-an-abortion-clinic/feed/137‘Like Martin Luther King and other human rights reformers’https://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/like-martin-luther-king-and-other-human-rights-reformers/
https://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/like-martin-luther-king-and-other-human-rights-reformers/#commentsTue, 23 Oct 2012 13:00:55 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=306025Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott awarded two Diamond Jubilee medals to anti-abortion activists, one of whom is currently in prison.Mary Wagner, 38, who has been repeatedly charged with mischief and …

]]>Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott awarded two Diamond Jubilee medals to anti-abortion activists, one of whom is currently in prison.

Mary Wagner, 38, who has been repeatedly charged with mischief and violating court orders at abortion clinics, was nominated for the medal by Saskatchewan Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott. Another Jubilee medal went to Linda Gibbons, a Toronto grandmother who has been charged numerous times for breaching the court-ordered “bubble zones” around clinics. Vellacott likened the two women to U.S. civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr…

Wagner is being held at a correctional facility for women in Milton, Ont., pending her next court appearance on charges of violating the terms of her probation. She was arrested at a Toronto abortion clinic in August and is awaiting trial. Wagner was previously convicted of mischief and two counts of breaching probation for entering the Bloor Street West Village Women’s Clinic in November 2011 and approaching patients in the waiting room. At the time, she was on probation for a previous mischief charge and had been prohibited from coming within 200 metres of the clinic or contacting its staff.